There was very little support for Huron County's Natural Heritage Plan at Thursday night's public meeting in Zurich.
Asked for a show of hands, none of the forty people raised their hand in support of the plan. The general feeling was the county and the province were dictating what property owners could do on their land and that wasn't going over very well.
Some people, like Barry Mahon of West Perth, indicated there was an agreement with Queen Elizabeth the 2nd that stated they could do what they wanted with their property and no one could take that right away from them.
Mahon insisted that no piece of federal or provincial legislation could trump what he called the Crown Patent.
Huron County Planner Susanna Reid asked everyone to put their comments in writing so they could be passed on to county council, but she also pointed out the Natural Heritage Plan applied primarily to new development.
She used the example of someone wanting to build a new house in a wood lot and said that would likely trigger an environmental impact study. But she pointed out it would not prevent anyone from farming that land, and said it applied to development - but not farming practices.
It was also also noted at last night's meeting that several neighbouring counties are going through the same Natural Heritage Plan process.
(photo by Bob Montgomery)